RSS Feeds
Focus on Barack Obama
Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times
Iowa's wide summer sky frames Barack Obama, who has made a point of reaching out to people tired of divisive politics. In the state's intimate settings, where voters come in person to take the measure of the candidate, his rhetoric has been mild. He's sometimes criticized as too conciliatory.
As a boy in Indonesia, Barack Obama crisscrossed the religious divide. At the local primary school, he prayed in thanks to a Catholic saint. In the neighborhood mosque, he bowed to Allah.
Hawaii classmates recall him as a happy kid who fit in. They say they had no idea of the racial tension inside.
Barack Obama's entry into politics came on a winter morning at the white-columned Harvard Law Review building when, about 2 a.m., a deeply divided editorial staff chose him as the first African American to lead the prestigious publication.
The drama began with a tiny ad in a local newspaper -- a notice that asbestos was about to be removed from the management office at Altgeld Gardens, the all-black public housing complex where young Barack Obama worked as a community organizer.
Barack Obama may be sold as something new in the presidential race, but in Illinois' hardball politics, he fit right in.